Announcement

Adobe is committed to delivering exceptional software and services to our customers. It’s in our nature to innovate
and try new things, and it was in this spirit that we acquired Business Catalyst in 2009. As we re-focus on
products that broadly provide our customers with the most value, Adobe is announcing the end of development
for Business Catalyst as of March 26th, 2018. New sites will no longer be available for purchase starting
with June 18th, 2018.

Adobe will stop hosting existing sites on Business Catalyst on March 26th, 2020 2021. Adobe encourages customers
to download their data and migrate to other systems well before March 26th, 2020 2021. Detailed how-to information
and assistance is available. Customers' data will be retained by Adobe until March 26th, 2020 2021, after which
date the data will be deleted. Data retention is for the sole purpose of allowing customers to export their
data and transfer to another platform.

Important Update

More than two weeks have passed since the End of Life Announcement for Business Catalyst. During this time we have listened to your feedback on a variety of channels in addition to speaking directly with our partners. Two pain points we’ve heard consistently are the timelines for closing down Business Catalyst along with the ability to upgrade trial sites to paid.
Recognizing that these are challenges that many partners face, we have decided to modify our plans in order to ease your transition out of the Business Catalyst platform, as follows:

We are extending the End of Life timeline from 2 years to 3 years, with the end of life now scheduled for March 26th, 2021. We hope this additional year will give our valued customers and partners sufficient time to move clients to a different platform.

We are extending the ability to upgrade trial sites to paid until 8/27 (was 6/18). This new date provides you with 5 months past the End of Life Announcement to close all of your on-going projects.

Thank you providing your feedback and insight. We know this is a difficult transition and are committed to help you succeed in the effort to migrate your sites to new platforms.

Important milestones

26th March 2018

Announcement of Business Catalyst End Of Life date for March 26th 2020 March 26th 2021

Trials can still be created from the Partner Portal or OBB, as long as they are upgraded by June 18th 2018 August 27th 2018

18th June 2018

No new trials can be created

Support is prioritized for platform migration questions, in addition to critical security, compliance,
and availability issues

18th June 2018 27th August 2018

No new sites can be upgraded to paid

All sites will move to monthly billing on their first renewal date after June 18th 2018 June 1st 2019

26th MARCH 2020 26th MARCH 2021

All data is removed from the Business Catalyst infrastructure and sites become unavailable for the
public

Frequently asked questions

When will the End of Life take effect?

On March 26th, 2020 March 26th, 2021.

Will this end-of-service affect paid sites as well?

Yes, all sites, including trial and paid sites, partner sites, etc. will be affected by the end of life.

Will data be available for download beyond the service end date?

No. Data will be deleted. We encourage users to download their data before the service end date.

I need help downloading my data. Whom can I contact for help?

BC users may find export instructions in the Business Catalyst Help and Support pages. If you still have questions,
please contact our Customer Support team.

How long do I have to export my data?

All Business Catalyst servers will be taken down on March 26th, 2020 March 26th, 2021, after which all customer data will be
deleted. Please export your data before March 26th, 2020 March 26th, 2021.

How long will you keep my data? What will you do with it?

We will retain your data until March 26th, 2020 March 26th, 2021 or until you delete your site, whichever is sooner, so that
you can transition to another product.

Do you recommend another product for me to use?

While there are other hosting solutions available in the market, Adobe does not recommend a specific product. For basic websites and Creative Cloud users , we provide documentation to help with transition to GoDaddy, should the customer choose this replacement. Moreover, since we’ve seen the emergence of Do-It-Yourself (DIY) website creators that leverage customizable templates to quickly create responsive websites, Adobe is making our own investment in the DIY space and welcomes all interested customers to join our upcoming pre-release program for a new format that will be introduced later this year as part of Adobe Spark.

Will new features be developed?

No, new features will no longer be developed on Business Catalyst. We are maintaining a small team to correct
critical issues, but no new work is being done. The Business Catalyst team will maintain the PCI and GDPR
compliance throughout the lifetime of the product and develop any new features needed in this respect.

Will Adobe still fix the bugs in Business Catalyst?

We will continue to repair critical issues (related to security, payments or customer data for example) when
they appear, however, the work will be limited to bugs that have a high security or high stability risk.
We will not be fixing minor items with small impact or that have a workaround which can be used.

Will my site be closed down?

At this time, all sites will continue to be live and the public will see no difference in your site. However,
starting with March 26th, 2021, all sites will no longer be live, they will not be accessible either to
the general public, or to the site administrators. Please find an alternative platform for your site and
data before this date.

Can I continue creating trial sites?

You can continue creating trial sites until June 18th 2018. They need to be upgraded to a paid plan before
June 18th 2018 August 27th, 2018. The data from these sites, as well as from any other site in your portfolio, needs to
be removed from the platform before March 26th, 2020 March 26th, 2021.

Can I upgrade my trial site to paid?

You can continue upgrading trial sites to paid until June 18th 2018 August 27th, 2018, but the data from these sites, as well
as from any other site in your portfolio needs to be removed from the platform before March 26th, 2020 March 26th, 2021.

Can I downgrade my site or make any other plan changes?

Yes, you can continue making any changes to your site plan and extras until March 26th, 2020 March 26th, 2021.

Can I still purchase extras?

You can continue purchasing extras until March 26th, 2020 March 26th, 2021. Please note that all extras expire on March 26th, 2020 March 26th,
2021 and can no longer be used after that date.

Can I continue sending newsletters?

The e-mail marketing features will continue to work for the duration of your site. You can continue sending
emails until March 26th, 2020 March 26th, 2021 at which point all newsletter credits remaining in your account will expire.

Can I still redeem my commissions?

You can continue to redeem the commissions available in your account until March 26th, 2020. Following this
date this feature will not be available anymore. Learn more about commissions

What happens to the commissions below $500?

Starting with June 18th 2018, Adobe Business Catalyst will lower the commissions redemption limit at $100. Additionally, partners will be able to redeem commissions lower than $100 starting with March 1st, 2019.
Learn more about commissions

Can I extend the validity of my extras beyond March 26th, 2020 March 26th, 2021?

No, the validity date for your extras can no longer be extended. All extras not used until March 26th, 2020 March 26th 2021
will be forfeited.

Will I be able to use Adobe Muse or Dreamweaver to update my site?

Will I still have technical support for Adobe Business Catalyst?

Yes, until March 26th, 2020 March 26th, 2021. However, after June 18th 2018, our support team will give a higher priority to
cases about the off the platform migration questions, in addition to critical security, compliance, and
availability issues.

Migrate your website

Depending on how your website was built here are a few guides that will help with the migration process:

Upload your website to another platform using FTP

Download your website data to your computer

Learn how to download your CRM contacts, products, webapps and other site data to your computer.

Backup your emails and take your new site live

This article describes how to back up the email accounts and point the DNS records to your new website.

Recommended Migration Partners Program

The Recommended Migration Partners Program aims to bring together BC partners needing to migrate their sites out of BC and established partners owning or working with online platforms capable of providing quality web hosting and development services. The migration partners will have to comply with a set of requirements (described below) in order to be featured on Adobe Business Catalyst properties.

Program Benefits

Adobe will prominently display a banner promoting each Partner, provided by the Partner and approved by Adobe, and pointing to a landing page defined by the Partner. The areas where these banners will be displayed are:

Once approved by Adobe, Partners will be able to join (or leave) the Program at any time.

Partners will be allowed to market themselves as being “Recommended by Adobe” in connection with the offering of migration services to migrate sites off of BC. This permission to market as “Recommended by Adobe” is given exclusively for the process of migrating sites off Business Catalyst and not for any other product or service provided by the Partners.

Program Requirements

In order to join the program, partners must agree and met the a set of requirements.

Partner will attract and migrate BC paid sites off BC. Partner must be able to migrate 2000+ BC paid sites per year off BC and must commit to not turning down customers due to volume overload. If Partner has not migrated a steady and significant number of sites off BC (at least a baseline of 2000 sites per 12 months period), Adobe may remove the partner from the Program. From time to time, Adobe will also review migrated sites for each partner and will have the right to remove partners from the Program if they are not in compliance with their obligations under the Program requirements.

Partner will create a clearly defined migration process (including written processes and offer an automated tool or tools to help fast-track the migration of sites) and which must be demoed to and vetted by Adobe prior to Partner’s inclusion in the Program. A focus of the demo for Adobe will be Partner’s use of automation in the site migration process to demonstrate the ability to service 2000+ paid sites per year, as expected. The migration process and tool must adhere to the general quality expectations of Adobe which will be communicated at the time of the demo by the Partner to Adobe.

The destination platform for migrated BC paid sites will have previous experience on working with digital agencies, offer at least 24/5 support, high availability (99.5% uptime or higher), include DNS and SSL management, and will be in compliance with all applicable laws and standards (e.g., GDPR, PCI DSS for e-Commerce sites, etc.) or allow customers to become compliant themselves. In the event Partner is unable to meet the above-stated requirements for any reason, Partner must obtain written acknowledgement from the site owner that the destination platform does not meet Adobe’s requirements and that s/he accepts the level of support, uptime, and/or compliance being offered (as applicable). Every 12 months beginning on the one-year anniversary date of Partner’s acceptance into the Program, Partner must report to Adobe the monthly average uptime for Partner’s platform for the preceding 12 months period.

Within thirty (30) days after the migration of each BC paid site by Partner to the destination platform, Partner must collect an NPS satisfaction score from the site owner. If the score is 6 or less, Partner must take corrective action to satisfy the site owner. Once the issues are remediated, Partner may invite the site owner to revise their score and, if applicable, Partner will document why the final satisfaction score was 6 or less. Every 12 months, Partner will report to Adobe the aggregated NPS satisfaction score collected for the sites fully migrated within these 12 months, and for the sites with a score of 6 or less, corrective actions taken for them and why the score remained below Adobe’s expectations. Adobe may also ask for this report more frequently, especially within the initial 12 months of the program. Adobe reserves the right to immediately remove any Partner from the Program whose average overall NPS falls below 40% as computed using the standard methodology.

Adobe reserves the right to terminate the Program at any time provided that it gives thirty (30) days advance notice to Partners in the Program. These Program guidelines and requirements may be modified or amended by Adobe at any time.

Other than a requirement that Partners abide by and comply with the Program guidelines, there are no other contractual obligations on Partners with respect to the Program, and Partner’s relationship with Adobe will continue pursuant to their existing agreement with Adobe. Adobe will regularly review how partners serve / migrate their clients off the platform, and may remove Partners from the program if they are not in compliance.

Adobe and Partner will each bear their own costs, expenses, and taxes incurred pursuant to the Program and the performance of their duties and obligations under the Program. Neither Adobe nor Partner will be entitled to any compensation, reimbursement, or other remuneration under the Program.

This Program and all of its provisions will terminate on March 26, 2021.